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Even your boss wants to quit

axios.com

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81–90 of 127 posts

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#81

Post by 3-cheese-sundae »

wccrawford wrote: post #74
jayroh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how fast and profoundly "perspective" will hit you. When I was a young programmer I always dreamed of that promotion and comp adjustment. Constantly looking for that next step. That's not inherently bad, per se, but once you reach a particular place you come to find out what the commensurate responsibility looks like. Sometimes -- dare I say, often? -- it's just not fun. That's what they pay you for, thoug…

I caught this perspective early, and would be very clear in interviews that I didn't ever want to be a manager. I had a lot of interviewers ask, "Don't you have any ambition?" My answer was always that I did, I got to where I wanted to be, and I intend to stay there. I'm a programmer. I program. Ambition realized. And with the money that programmers make, it seems even more ridiculous to suggest that I had no ambitio…

I’m in this position as well, but over time I’m becoming more concerned about getting pushed out of independent contribution by ageism.

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#82

Post by daxfohl »

angarg12 wrote: post #76

My org has seen significant attrition at all levels, including mid+ management. My take is much simpler: just like us IC folks, managers jump ship for better opportunities, promotions, and raises. I'm not making this up. I've heard leaders comment in private about how their compensation has dipped due to the recent stock market crash. Since the higher you go in the chain, the biggest the share of your comp is in stoc…

Yeah my signing bonus is beans now. Fresh college grads are getting equivalent to what my staff offer has become. Maybe that's partially why coinbase rescinded offers, to avoid the senior engineers from comparing their relative signing bonuses and feeling angry about it.

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#83

Post by RemoteIsHeaven »

daxfohl wrote: post #75
hansword wrote: post #57

> What we found was that the majority [of C-suite executives] want to do something about it, but they just haven't done something about it I literally laughed out loud. This is how it is, this is always how it is. LOL

I have to give them benefit of the doubt. How many things are on my own plate that I haven't done anything about yet? A lot.

> How many things are on my own plate that I haven't done anything about yet? A lot

sure but that's not how leadership works.

Part of leadership is prioritization and ownership.

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#84

Post by zamadatix »

tintor wrote: post #50
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hourly is meaningless if you can’t choose more hours. If you had a job that paid $1000/hr but you only work 1 hr/week that is not enough for many people to live on. So if you need a lot of money for your lifestyle the high hours/high pay job might be your only option.

But you'd have time to do another $1000/hr job elsewhere.

Depending how you come into the job a lot of places won't let you work 2 jobs, especially if you're salaried.

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#85

Post by RemoteIsHeaven »

maxfurman wrote: post #36

Funny to see this today - my own boss resigned last month and we've been interviewing for his replacement. I haven't decided whether or not to apply for his position; I don't want all of his responsibilities but I do want to keep the autonomy that I've gained since he left.

> my own boss resigned last month and we've been interviewing for his replacement. I haven't decided whether or not to apply for his position; I don't want all of his responsibilities but I do want to keep the autonomy that I've gained since he left

the risk being that the new boss takes the autonomy away from you (and much more)

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#86

Post by rxhernandez »

phil21 wrote: post #77
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grass is greener etc. Other peoples situations always seem better/easier. We don’t have enough data and are just too poor at objective evaluation.

The grass is never greener, it's just a different shade of brown.

I think if I were homeless, a FAANG SWE job would definitely be greener.

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#88

Post by subsubzero »

idiotsecant wrote: post #29
subsubzero wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What people don't realize is the job that pays 30% or so more than your current job requires alot more work and a ton more stress, and for me that is not worth the extra money - which by the way most of which goes to taxes anyway. I really feel like it doesn't "pay" to move up in an org mainly due to the extremely high tax hit along with stress the title comes with.

There isn't a tax bracket in the US where most of any income goes to taxes. There should be though!

So in California we were losing about half of our money to taxes, its always fun to make estimated tax payments when you received your quarterly RSUs(~40% of the RSU money goes to taxes when you get them) and then with the rest putting half of that towards a quarterly tax payment, we left the state to avoid the stranglehold of taxes and will probably go to 1 income as two high earners just isn't worth it, but if you like higher taxes move to Europe, you may love it there.

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#89

Post by levi-turner »

subsubzero wrote: post #25
willcipriano wrote: post #4

I wouldn't want my bosses job. I don't think it pays all that much more than mine but it requires a lot of days full of meetings and late nights. I may even do better on a hourly basis. I think some people get wrapped up in the headline salary number (XXX,XXX per year, that's a lot of money!) and never break it down into a hourly number to see if it's actually a better deal.

What people don't realize is the job that pays 30% or so more than your current job requires alot more work and a ton more stress, and for me that is not worth the extra money - which by the way most of which goes to taxes anyway. I really feel like it doesn't "pay" to move up in an org mainly due to the extremely high tax hit along with stress the title comes with.

I really think you are narrowly looking at things from near the peak of earning potential and an established career track. That's fine for some and this _is_ a tech oriented site, but still seems rather narrowly focused.

Sample size of 1:

- Job 1 -> Job 2: Neither in tech; 80% raise; even in terms of stress / work

- Job 2 -> Job 3: Move to a Support group in a tech company; 11% raise; much higher stress / work

- Job 2 -> Job 3: Support to Technical Sales; 70% raise (after 5 raises at job 2); less work / higher peak stress (maybe) but lower average stress

Re: Even your boss wants to quit

#90

Post by lostdog »

daxfohl wrote: post #78
maxfurman wrote: post #36

Funny to see this today - my own boss resigned last month and we've been interviewing for his replacement. I haven't decided whether or not to apply for his position; I don't want all of his responsibilities but I do want to keep the autonomy that I've gained since he left.

Same. (Actually I'm in the really weird position of: manager quit, M2 out with covid, M3 paternity. M4 is even on vacation this week). I half wonder if forcing every manager to take a three month vacation each year would lead to an increase in productivity.

The better the managers are in an organization, the less they need to do. Once they've stood up a good team, removed friction, and made a good plan, you run out of things to do. But the best managers also want to keep busy, so they keep trying to intervene, which is counterproductive.

I wonder if we should go back to sending managers to the golf course more regularly.

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